Japanese Bureaucracy

[ellienihon]

I HATE IT! The city is fucking slow and they won't give me my foreign resident card until the 7th of May. So I picked up a paper saying that yes, I registered, and, through no fault of mine, don't have the card yet. The stupid cellphone company won't accept that. I live 5 minutes walk away, I can give them my employer's name and number, I have a bank account and inkan. They won't let a foreigner have a phone without the stupid card, and the city won't give me the stupid card because they're lame. I've been having a hard time getting in touch with people because of my lack of phone. I can't make any calls beyond the area code from my home phone, and I don't want to sit at home waiting for people to call. I have phone cards and have been using them, but looking for a public phone is a pain in the ass, and again, it's problematic to receive calls. I'm supposed to meet Sakura at the station near her house to go to Hanami (flower watching, yeay) in Nagoya tonight, but I have no idea how to find her without a phone. I had hoped to get a phone and be able to contact her that way, but because I'm a foreigner, I can't. This sucks! There are many things I like about Japan. Hidebound bureaucracy is not one of them. /rant

That said, I'm really looking forward to Hanami tonight and seeing Sakura. We haven't been able to contact each other since my first weekend here. I think I'll go call her and see what she thinks about calling Miho in Nagoya and seeing if she wants to go to. I'm looking forward to spending some time with a female my age. Mic and Glen are good guys, but not really my thing, you know? Anyway, that's all for now.